Thu,
2012-05-10 11:14 -- jacques.compton
“Social
Empowerment” and not “Social Welfare” is the approach which will be taken
by government to tackle the issue of poverty in Saint Lucia. Presenting his 2012/2013 Budget Address on
Tuesday May 8th, Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Honourable Dr. Kenny Anthony explained that throughout
the world persons living below the poverty line have been hit the hardest
during this global economic crisis. The groups most vulnerable as noted in the
Prime Minister’s address are the young, the poor and single mothers.
In
an effort to ease the financial squeeze, the Saint Lucian Government has made
various promises which include focusing on two areas. The first area of focus
is the provision of assistance and support to the vulnerable groups mentioned
before. The second would be to improve on the actual delivery of these
services. As in most cases in any civil service, bureaucracy tends to hamper
the efficiency.
Out
of the various social transformation programmes envisioned by the government,
Dr. Anthony signalled two of the most prominent in his budget address - the
Basic Needs Trust Fund BNTF and KOUDMEN SENT LISI. According to the Prime Minister the former
“seeks to assist poor communities in improving basic infrastructure and
services and increase their potential for generating economic activity.” The
BNFT programme will also seek to provide the much needed resources “for the
implementation of sub-projects that support and improve the capacity of
community-based organisations in the application of participatory approaches
for planning, monitoring and decision-making.” It was stated that over nine
million EC dollars would be allocated to the funding of this programme.
The
second programme - 'Koudmen Sent Lisi', - according to Dr. Anthony “is aimed at
providing families with comprehensive support systems, services and benefits to
graduate from a situation of poverty, deprivation and vulnerability to a
sustainable livelihood status.”
This
strategy hopes to empower impoverished families by improving their living
conditions and productive assets. Dr. Anthony noted - “The programme focuses on
ensuring the presence of the minimum conditions a family needs to improve their
quality of life and this is achieved by generating opportunities, access to
essential services and providing them with needed resources to develop or
recuperate their capacities. I am allocating $3.0 million for the
implementation of this project.”
Additionally,
the Public Assistance Programme will see many reforms. One of the most note
worthy being the transferring of public assistance from the Ministry of Health
to the Ministry of Social Transformation. In defence of the change, the Prime
Minister heavily criticised the current processes involved. In his own words “Saint Lucia’s current Public
Assistance Act does not adequately meet the needs of the poverty reduction
agenda of the country, because of the way it defines the poor and targets
persons for assistance. It also does not
address issues of empowerment and human capital development of the poor or
provide for a programme of assistance geared towards differential responses to
poverty.” It was stated that therefore
the proposed reforms will address the weaknesses and shortcomings of the
current system. Accountability, the Duplication of Services and the Receipt of
Assistance under False Pretences will be dealt with under the proposed reforms
within the public assistance services.
It
is hoped that these reforms will add to the efforts of poverty reduction and
improvement “of fiscal performance from medium to long term.” According to the
address in the long term “This will ultimately bring improved robustness to
Government’s social spending which would yield increased value for the
money expended.”
No comments:
Post a Comment